


The Prairie State Debate

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: The X-Files
Genre: A Date That Isn't A Date, F/M, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Small Towns, Star Wars References, Tumblr Prompt, i did research for this i read forum pages i have feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: anonymous asked: scully and mulder debating/arguing whether the star wars gang would be considered aliens or humans-The hotel is all booked, the case is in full-swing, and despite having been awake the entire drive, Scully can't help but wonder how she ended up here.





	The Prairie State Debate

**Author's Note:**

> i got. way too into this but i had a lot of fun trying to set it up in a way tht wouldnt be ooc and honestly i feel like i accomplished tht pretty well? i'm proud of it anyhow!

_The hotel is all booked._

_Booked?_

_Not another around for miles._

_Shit-_

_Except for one room._

_Only one,_

_I could sleep on the sidewalk, outside._

_And succumb to hypothermia._

_You know, I've always thought frostbite would be an interesting way to go._

_Focus- the hotel is booked._

_Right, but they said they could offer double beds._

_Why didn't you lead with that?_

_I wanted to see how bad you'd squirm._

_I hope you like pavement._

_____

They've been in town for twenty-two hours and Scully is having probably the best time someone can have in Illinois. Which isn't saying much, because it's Illinois, but that's the consensus for most states this side of the Mississippi. And on the other side, too. 

Scully's not a fan of the Midwest this month.

If they had been more toward the city, a city, any city she thinks it wouldn't be so bad, but they are where grass recedes like a hairline around ramshackle abandoments, and trees rise in their own baby-booming generation.

It is, impossibly, that bad.

Or maybe it's not at all the fault of the grainy scenery, and more to be blamed upon the smell of Mulder's wintergreen chewing gum he's attacking in lieu of sunflower seeds, and the fact that she has mud in her pantyhose for the fourth time this month. Perhaps it's also because the local sheriff has decided his eye level is much too tall for her height and won't deign to even look at her when she speaks, or maybe her sour disposition can be attributed to the fact that for the dozen shops that speckle what is affectionately called 'main street,' but she feels is much more suited to be 'this is it' there isn't one damn place to get a cup of coffee or an unexpired Ibuprofen.

Her headache has been given lineage of the pressure system moving in on the tailend of snow, but she's got her own ideas which find it to be the bastard child of grinding her teeth for the past thirty-odd hours and holding her breath to see if lack of oxygen will carry her away to an Oz that's even one shade less saturated in bullshit than this one.

So far, she's chipped a molar and found that blue isn't really her lip color.

But try as she might, she's still sunken into the murky depths of this case with full weight and clear eyes, and so she'll wring the mud from her nylon later with the barest dash of pride. Or tablespoonful- she's never been the best at measuring her seasoning.

Until then, she's left clomping through sludge and muck to track down the game cameras of a man she just might believe had seen the turn of the century- eighteenth, that is. Decrepit was too gentle a word for the appearance of both Herman P. Wright and his dog Tootsie, but the same couldn't be said for his wit or stamina. She wasn't sure how long they walked, having left her valuables in their rental lest they be lost to a backwash puddle, but it was enough to leave even Mulder huffing and puffing, that much she knew.

From Herman's property they had dashed the map back to their hotel long enough to flip a coin to see who got the first shower and thus the guaranteed hot water (Mulder) and resign to the absurdity of upcoming dry-cleaning bills (Scully.)

Their hotel was, quite literally, a hop, skip, and a jump from the so-called Main Street, a place that Scully tried to find the charm in, and succeeded for as long as her eyes were locked onto the diner at the far end of it. Small towns, though they were something she was well-trained in, were something that Scully couldn't make herself love. It was too close of quarters.

They passed so many off-the-wall stores to get to the diner - cobbler, apothecary, seamstress, bakery - that Scully even briefly entertained the notion that perhaps Herman P. Wright had them stuck in a kind of removed-from-time loop. 

Luckily, there was a gaudy movie theater situated on the far side of the avenue to pull her back to her right mind.

Dinner twisted away like dandelion wishes, table plated in hard plastic cups and warm to the touch dishes. The tea was syrupy sweet, made by the hand of a true Southern child despite their current place on the map, and the food sported heavy gravys and savory score marks - a combination that left Scully, two servings and only yeses for 'would you like a refill?' Scully, ready to collapse into the gossamer sheets of her bed until tomorrow.

But when she felt fingers on the rise of her shoulder, heard an absence of footsteps beside her, glanced up at a dazzling marquee, she lead the way in to the theater. She was tired, yes, but she had been more so, no doubt would be same time next week, and these moments like monthly allowances were something she needed to recharge as much as anything.

She bought tickets so as not to be forced into looking over the poorly-lit concessions display case, rubbing her fingers over the slick paper of the little red ticket stub while she waited for Mulder.

He had the candies stuffed in his jacket pockets, so she didn't see what they were, but he handed her a sloshing cola - _whatever they had on tap,_ he joked, _I don't know where it got its medical degree_ \- and they ducked into one of three screenings under the watchful eyes of the lonely usher.

In her youth Scully had done a lot of stupid things, as one was wont to do, and among that, the most minor of the infractions had been sneaking into an anniversary screening of Rebel Without a Cause with a boy whose name and face and mouth escaped her every time she considered the memory.

Now, she still couldn't remember much of anything about him, but she did remember the cheap thrill that had run through her as they dumped themselves giggling into the red upholstery of the theater seats.

She and Mulder weren't giggling, nor were they sneaking, but they did lean in, shouders bunched next to one another like government-issue-blue peonies, and their whisperings were breathed closer than was strictly necessary.

From his pockets he relieved a pack of red vines, and promptly called his own bet by sliding her a box of Raisinets. She raised him a staggering grin and leaned back into her seat.

The music trumpeted through worn speakers, crackling like a CB Radio, and the introduction began to scroll. Scully mumbled along with a pace she'd measured years before, loud enough only for Mulder to huff an awe-stricken laugh in reply, eyes cast of wonder.

_It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire._

_____

Of the two beds they were provided with, one was missing the pillowcases, and the other creaked. 

Scully found that not having pillowcases didn't impede her sleep in the slightest.

Though the decision - made also by the flip of a coin, arcade token to be exact - was soon found to be regrettable in the sense that even upon the edge of sleep, Mulder couldn't stop moving. Tossing and turning wasn't even the right phrase, he was a hurricane barreling down the east coast, a booted foot doubling down on the oldest, most unsteady staircase.

Creak. Punch the pillow. Creak. Rearrange the blankets. Creak. Switch sides. Creak. Exhale, Inhale, Exhale.

A 'Mulder?' is said into the blankness of the room, and it is, of course, responded to with a sure-footed, 'Scully?'

_What's wrong?_

_What?_

_Something's obviously wrong, what is it?_

_Nothing._

_Mulder, I've had to listen to you orchestrate that bed for the past half hour, it's not nothing._

_Is Luke Skywalker human or alien, you think? Leia and Han, for that matter, too._

Mulder poses, for lack of a better colloquialism, stupid questions at an exponential rate every day. He's incredibly intelligent, and Scully knows and admires that, really, she does. But sometimes, things come out of his mouth that leave her speechless and withered at the consideration that anyone could ever circle around to it.

_Mulder._

_Just think about it._

Stupid questions is too harsh, and not at all what she means. Mulder asks the questions no one else will, always has, and doesn't care how they make him look as long as it rules out one thing or the other. It's something she ~~loves~~ greatly admires about him.

Still, as she considers whether or not Luke Skywalker is more closely related to herself or E.T., she can't help but think it's a stupid question

_Human._

_You don't sound so sure about that, Scully._

_Well- Mulder, come on, human, of course. If it walks like a duck-_

_And has sentient, microscopic-life forms teeming in its cells like a duck-_

_Just because someone has a parasite or-or a disease, a bloodborne illness, that doesn't mean they aren't still human. And furthermore, what indication are we ever given that they_ aren't _human?_

Scully can't help but sit up, her hair out behind her like bike handle streamers, pale red tassles that whistle in the air circulating from the rickety fan hung above them.

_By all accounts, they're human- they don't show any outward physiological differences, they aren't Yoda or Jabba or Greedo, and they all come from Earth-like atmospheres, suggesting no biological differences, either._

_But they aren't from Earth; Alderaan, Tatooine, Corellia, what says that the atmospheric conditions are anything remotely close to ours? Besides, by not being born on Earth, they're automatically within the definition of extra-terrestrial._

_Mulder, all that shows is a linear evolutionary pattern. Humans that left Earth, colonized the galaxy, and adapted to their surroundings- it's history repeating in epic proportions. And while I'll grant you a classification of extra-terrestrial, they're not alien. Even in the films they're referred to as human beings on more than one occassion, so doesn't that sum it up as much as automatic assumptions of extra-terrestrial-ness?_

Mulder laughs, not malicious, but something like humored at her creative liberties and impressed in his usual impressed way.

_So they're extra-terrestrial humans?_

_Yes, they are. They also weild crystal weaponry and are decidedly fictional, Mulder._

A pause, she draws her hands over her hair. _Did that help?_

He smiles, eyes dimpling and cheeks crinkling. _Get some sleep, Scully. Big day tomorrow._

She at least knows that means yes.

They face one wall each, backs turned to one another in a display of trust they've never known because there is always a line drawn in adjacent room and board.

The pillow is scruffy under her head, and she knows the room is far too dark despite the fact that her eyes are closed.

Creak. Roll. Creak. Roll. Creak. Punch pillow. Creak. Sit up.

_But Scully, who says that human even has the same meaning in the standard galactic language as it does in English? Two languages have similar words all the time, like a homonym._

She sits up again, her mouth puckered, her gears whirring, lets herself face him head on.

_Call Langly._

_Langly?_

_The only unbiased third party that's going to answer at this hour and care enough not to hang up, Mulder. And do it now before I change my mind. Bring your pillows, too._

He tries to duck his grin into his shoulder, but his eagerness is palpable in the fact that he's already reaching for his phone and scooping up the two pillows he was given with his other hand as he clambers from his bed to hers.

They run parallel to one another, legs crossed beneath them, facial expressions boiled down to lines and quirked brows as the phone rings and rings and rings. They bump shoulders, skewing the lines like they do when the only one looking has their back turned, and each try not to think about what it would be like to bump noses as lips whisper close.

The line clicks.

_Mulder?_

_And Scully._

_Scully?_

_Yes, Langly._

_Langly?_

_It's Mulder- and Scully, apparently._

_Byers?_

_Scully?_

_Langly-_

_Mulder._

They each swat away their fair share of questions and spun yarns of assumption, though the truth of it all seems shaky at best, squirreled away as Mulder leans farther into Scully's space and she into his, her ill-will for the day finally melting away. Given that, God only knows what the other end of the line looks like, but those are questions to be asked and tidings to be given when there aren't much more pressing matters.

_Langly, we need you to settle an argument._

_I thought we were debating-_

_Doesn't matter- lay it on me._

Scully has never heard Byers sound as resigned as she does in the moments following their convoluted explanations. She guesses he's heard this song before.

_I'll be in the kitchen._

_Sorry, Byers._

_It's fine, Scully._

_Langly, you still there?_

_Just give me a second, I'm thinking._

They all are, it's really just a matter of who can open their mouth first.

_____

Scully wakes to her phone ringing, Mulder with his nose pressed into the crook of her neck and a hand furrowed into her back, and fantastical words burned into her tastebuds.

It was as much an X-File as any ever would be - unsolved, but fought passionately for on all sides. Spun from contradictions and buried beneath falsehoods and the simplest facts. 

Still, the fact of it all doesn't much matter to her, and by the way Mulder's arm slips around her middle for minutes before she finally untangles to answer the third incoming call, she doesn't think it matters to him either.

(Depsite that, she holds steadfast to her argument and if he ever tries to retell the night, she'll be quick to remind him of that in grave detail.)

**Author's Note:**

> there's a chance that their argument makes sense to no one but me but thats a possibility i've already accepted gksjf
> 
> i'm on tumblr @foxmulldr which is where you can send me prompts like this and i'll probably also get way too into those too lmao


End file.
